Accidentally in Code

Category: Usability

  • My Theory of User Happiness and the Enterprise Application

    My Theory of User Happiness and the Enterprise Application

    Enterprise applications are (usually) the applications that people have to use, whereas consumer applications are (usually) those that they choose to use, and so I would argue they are where you can have the biggest effect on user-happiness. Gains in user happiness on consumer applications are mostly incremental – the standard is pretty high, it has to…

  • Unreasonable Expectations for my Calendar

    Unreasonable Expectations for my Calendar

    At the moment I’m trying to work out where I’m going to be for the next two months. A trip to New York is fixed, but a trip to Europe is not. And then there’s the maybe on Utah… too many dependencies! I find scheduling things stressful – the CompSci in me wants to find…

  • Don’t Snippet Me, Damnit

    Don’t Snippet Me, Damnit

    One of my favorite blogs just moved to snippets in the RSS feed. I hate snippets in my RSS, except for techmeme because I mostly tend to use the headlines to stay on top of industry news in a manageable way. If you’re trying to monetize your website, it makes sense – it drives more traffic, right?…

  • Computers as Appliances

    Typically, the first thing I do when I get home is put the kettle on. In fact if I’m working from home I’ll get up around every 45 minutes to make more tea. Don Norman wrote about automating the process (so the coffee machine talks to the cupboard, fridge, dishwasher etc) and that would be…

  • Books and Paper and Letting Go

    My mother, a busy GP, has accumulated a stack of newspapers that she has not had time to read. She keeps them in the hope that she will, one day, have more free time. I pointed out that she would be unlikely to want to spend this new free time reading newspapers from ages ago,…

  • Social is Normal

    Last week, I read Coders at Work (Amazon, Google books). I really enjoyed it, it was fascinating and I learned a lot about the history of programming and the programmers themselves. There’s a great quote from Douglas Crockford: Progress isn’t always forward. Sometimes we’re leaping forward and sometimes we’re leaping backwards. When we leaped to…

  • I’m Back on Facebook, but I Still Hate It

    After some time without Facebook, I’ve become quite happy without it. However, it’s my birthday next week and I’m headed to Seattle for the weekend and later on next week, we’re planning a party for the Awesome Foundation (which is GO – we have 10 trustees and a project, I’m so excited – expect more…

  • Usability Impacts Decisions

    My boyfriend and I both hate filling up the car with gas. We live 3 blocks from one gas station, and 4 from another. The first time we went to the one 3 blocks away, and it was a giant pain as we tried to work out how to use it. The credit card terminal…

  • Programmers Will Change The World

    On Tuesday, I went to an event at The Code Factory. Michelle Gauthier spoke for CapCHI on “User-Centered Design: A Cultural Challenge” (full details). I found it fascinating. I’ve been thinking about programming as a force for good a lot lately so it was great to hear an example about that. The talk was about…